Convenience Stores

St. Louis -- Panera Bread Company announced that Roger Matthews, executive VP and CFO, has resigned his position to pursue other opportunities.

Effective Aug. 6, Bill Moreton, executive vice chairman of Panera Bread, will serve as interim CFO as the company conducts a search for a full-time replacement. Moreton has previously held the positions of CEO, co-chief executive officer and CFO of Panera Bread. Matthews will transition his remaining duties through the end of August.

Epson, a leading supplier of value-added Point of Sale (POS) solutions, and Mobivity Holdings Corp., a provider of retail customer engagement and marketing technologies, have entered into a strategic partnership to transform receipts from transactional to actionable.

Target’s expansion of its troubled Canadian division remains on track as new chairman and CEO Brian Cornell prepares to assume leadership of the company in August.
 
The new stores are located at Erin Mills Town Centre in Mississauga, Ontario; Park Place in Barrie, Ontario and Carrefour Candiac in Candiac, Quebec. The Barrie and Candiac locations are new buildings. Earlier this year, Target opened three locations in Canada, and has plans to open three more later this fall, bringing this year’s total to nine and overall total to 130.

Grand Rapids, Mich. - Meijer is running an omnichannel back-to-school promotion offering Back-to-School Bucks, which are available through print and the Meijer digital coupon program, mPerks. Furthermore, customers can customize their own sale and save more than $35 on general merchandise and health and beauty care products the weekend of Aug. 15-16.

Cincinnati -- Phillips Edison-ARC Grocery Center REIT II, Inc. has acquired two grocery-anchored shopping centers, Northpark Village and Spring Cypress Village, both located in Texas.

Northpark Village is a 70,479-sq.-ft. grocery-anchored shopping center in Lubbock, anchored by United Supermarkets and tenanted by GNC, Starbucks, Super Tan and Sun Loan Company.

Spring Cypress Village is a 97,550-sq.-ft. grocery-anchored center in Houston, anchored by Sprouts and tenanted by Burger King, State Farm Insurance and Spec's.

Publix Super Markets and Weis Markets reported respectable second quarter sales growth, but profits were harder to come by.

Publix, the nation’s fifth largest supermarket chain, said sales for its second quarter increased 6.6% to $7.5 billion, with 1.3% of the gain related to the timing of Easter. Same store sales increased 6.3%. Despite the top line improvement, Publix said profits increased slightly less than 1% to $404.1 million from $400.9 million while earnings per share increased by a penny to 52 cents.

This year, the National Retail Federation has chosen Chicago’s Art Potash, owner of Potash Markets, as its first Retail Champion of the Year. Potash was recognized at NRF’s annual Retail Advocates summit on Capitol Hill.